You want customers to add items to the ecommerce shopping cart on your site. It gets them that much closer to the sale. However, it is very important to remember that, just because they put the item into their cart, it does not mean they will actually go through with the transaction and buy it. One of the banes of online retailers everywhere is shopping cart abandonment. It happens to even the largest and most successful of retailers, and you can be sure it is happening on your site, as well. Even though it is impossible to stop all instances of this, you can do some things that will help to reduce the issue, and most of these tips have to do with giving more to your customers.
Make Things Clear and Remove Hidden Fees
Always make your terms, costs, and policies for buying clear with your customers. Don’t add any hidden charges that only show up when they add the item to their cart. This is a surefire way to get them to abandon it.
Consider Free Shipping
Some people want to buy, but they see the cost of shipping after they place their items in the cart, and they don’t want to pay all of those extra fees. While you can’t always eat the cost of shipping, it might be a good idea to offer free shipping in some cases, such as purchases that are above a certain dollar amount. If you can’t offer entirely free shipping, it might help if you could at least offer flat rate shipping. This way, people will have an idea of what the total will be even before they add the item to their ecommerce shopping cart.
The Cart Needs to Be Easy to Access
The shopping cart should always be easy to access from all pages of your site. This way, the customer can get into the cart easily, see what he or she has added, and get to the checkout. If they have to go back and forth between pages just to find the cart, this is going to frustrate them. What will they do when they feel that frustration? They will click off your site and head over to the competition where things are faster and easier.
You might even want to consider using an ecommerce shopping cart that shows the items it includes without the customer even having to click on it. Having it permanently viewable can make it even easier on the buyers.
Keep the Checkout Process Simple
When people are purchasing items, they want it to be fast. The Internet should make things faster and easier, so if they have to fill out a number of forms just to get through the checkout, or if you require them to provide an email address or to sign up for a newsletter, chances are good they will simply click away to another site instead. Keep it streamlined.
More Payment Options
People want to have different ways to make their purchases. Having credit card and debit card options are naturally important, but you may want to go beyond that today. Consider adding some of the third party options such as PayPal and Google Wallet, just to make things easier on your customers. Doing so allows you to get customers who might not have been able to buy from you if you didn’t offer those options.
When you implement these changes and additions to your site, you will find that your ecommerce shopping cart abandonment rate should start to drop. Continually find ways to make your site better and friendlier to customers and you will reap the rewards.